When I see contrails that early in the morning here is what they make me think of: How early did those poor passengers have to get out of bed this morning? They must have already traveled to an airport, checked-in, boarded, taken-off and climbed to altitude--all before 7:00 AM. (Actually, I think your postings are set to Central time even when you are on the East Coast, but it is still pretty early) Or are they on red-eyes and actually are still up from last night?

It's mid-April, 1950. Mr. and Mrs. Althouse are a young married couple, deeply in love, with an adorable bright bouncing baby girl whose name I forget but I think begins, as does "Ann," with the letter "A."

Birds are singing, crepuscular squirrels are madly frolicking in rabidly delirious dances of erotic love. And the warm spring sun has just set to a stunningly dramatic display of color, shape, and movement. Life is happy for the Althouse family - almost as happy as a domestic life can be.

Mr. Althouse, a tall handsome man who is continually mistaken for Ol' Blue Eyes/Silver Throat himself, develops a timeless male twinkle in his eye and begins to hum a hum familiar only to one woman - his brilliant and comely young bride.

With a quick check to see that the baby is still napping soundly, she dims the chandelier, lights a tray of candles, and softly snuggles up to her man, whispering low and long,

"Merry Christmas, darling."

Little did either of them realize in that innocent moment of hope and longing, that their gift would be arriving three weeks late.

"In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in a church-affiliated magazine. “White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns."

Thanks, Ruth Anne. You know I'm just a common ordinary blue collar myth maker, so I appreciate any help I can get with accuracy and details - especially helpful for when I pass along the story to my friend, the illustrious and urbane Mr. T. York, who I'm hoping can be persuaded to write the screenplay.

LOL! No, not quite. I may have done radio in college, but my best friend is a fellow jazz musician with no on-air time (either playing CD's or being played on one) as of yet.

I did listen to Howard for quite a while when he was on in Dallas and I was doing a 35-mile commute to my teaching job every morning. The overall attitude of that show gave me the proper "pit bull" mentality to negotiate Dallas traffic at that time of day.

Rush? Not so much, mostly because his show is on during prime teaching time--and if I do end up listening to radio at that point in the day, I tune to a local show that's co-hosted by a guy who was on the same Little League team with me in fourth grade (small world!).

Happy birthday! I hope it was great. My mother's birthday was Saturday also - she turned 75. Just one year short of the next segment you mention. She's always loved having a winter birthday - one of her birthday activities ever since she was a kid is making ice cream, in a hand crank ice cream maker, using snow packed around the cannister.